


Tale of a Teafaring Lass

by Glitterpig



Category: Tea (Anthropomorphic)
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:59:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8889961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitterpig/pseuds/Glitterpig
Summary: The island bobbed like a lump of sugar on the horizon.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SugarGlassShards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarGlassShards/gifts).



> Tea is my one true love, so thank you for the opportunity to make tea puns. I hope you enjoy!

From her perch high up in the ship’s crow's nest, Camellia was first to spot land. She raised her spyglass to sight it, not to be tricked by a hope.

Though she squinted hard, the glimmer remained, just a tiny lump of glistening white on the horizon but unmistakeable. With a cry of "Land, ho!" she winged her way down the riggings.

She was just a small darjeeling, browned and battered by a year of sun at sea, but her voice was mighty. Roused by her shouts, the crew of rag-tag teafarers crowded portside.

“Be it land?” growled an assam, dried and wrinkled by the endless sun.

“Be it the land we’ve sought for so long?” said Grey, an earl in his own right before he cast off titles to pursue a better life. “Or be it just a mirage?”

“We shall know in due course.”

They were together a maltey crew, run ragged by the sea air and musky from storing up in the damp of below deck. All driven by the same dream.

“Best call the captain.”

The bakey fellow was drawn from his quarters thus. Rose of complexion, he wore a belt slung around his hips and at any moment was wont to break into a sea shanty or to draw his cutlass and "give 'em the old Cut-Tear-Curl!"

By now the sun had reached zenith temperatures, and the sea lapped quietly with the absent wind. After lifting his patch to gauge the distance, the captain pronounced, "Thar be an island if I ever did see.”

This was met with a cheer, the crew heartened after months of endless blue. No one asked the question that was on their minds, but many thought it. All teas knew, of course, of the mythic island of hot pools, spas where one could steep in peace. But they were just stories, a whisper of a dream that could surely not be real.

Still, at night as she tucked herself into her drawer, Camellia had let herself imagine steaming baths and sugared ground under-stem. Sweet rivers of milk.

The crew was staring fixedly at the speck. “Be it just a rock?” said Genmai Cha. She held up a kernel of rice and compared it. “It appears so small.”

The captain lit his pipe and puffed. “Aye, she be small,” he said. “But she be land enough for me.”

This was met with a chorus of agreement, as they all rallied behind the most fearsome sailor among them.

“What be you waiting for,” cried he. “Set sail and let this ocean see our backside!”

The crew raced to the ropes and set their course due south. Before she’d joined this tightknit group, Camellia had been rootless, a leaf on the wind. She’d yearned for a land where life was easy, and then she’d joined up with this courageous bunch and their dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of fresh watered splashiness.

 

 

 

Two days it took them, thanks to the unpredictable western gale. But soon the island filled the horizon, and they dropped ship’s anchor just after noon.

The first scouts ventured out from The Jasmine Fancy, and when the coast was deemed clear, they were followed by the rest. Among them, Camellia, her first taste of land in months. The land was granulated and glistened white, so bright she was nearly blinded. Such a rabble they made slogging to shore that birds flew from the underbrush with loud racket.

The sailors soon became aware that they were not alone when a coppery leaf met them at the edge of the greenery with an air of suspicion to her.

Camellia could not blame her. They were a sight, it was to be sure, and at the sight of this beautiful stranger, she became suddenly aware of her lack of refinement.

“Gentle maiden,” said the captain stepping from the ranks and bowing at mid-stem. “We come in the spirit of peace, and humbly ask to be welcomed to your land with words of friendship, not of shear.”

The leaf regarded them in silence, looking them over, naught but the sound of waves meeting the shore. Finally, she asked, “Pirates?”

“Adventurers,” Camellia corrected, and then shrunk back at the leaf’s steady look.

“I see. Well, I suppose I should bring you to see the ruler of this island. She’ll know what to do with you.”

“Many thanks,” said the captain. “Lead on.”

The underbrush was thick, great flower drooping with heat and Camellia found herself at the head of the pack, falling into stride beside the stranger.

“What do they call you?” she asked.

“Golden Tips,” she responded. It was for obvious reason. She was, Camellia noticed, well-twisted. “And you?”

“Camellia. We’re very gratified to make your acquaintance as we seek a better world for teafarers like ourselves.”

“And what better world is that?”

“One of fresh water, where one can live one’s life till a ripe old age, in the open air and not tinned in some pantry or worse, in single-use packets.”

This was met with silence and Camellia remembered just why she’d never tried to blend with another tea. She always came on too strong, too young.

“Mind the root,” said Golden Tips, and caught her as Camellia did the opposite.

“Right, thanks,” she said. “Sea legs, you know.”

They marched ever onward.

 

 

In a time they left the trees and arrived at a lovely grotto. A burbling stream set the scene, and jasmine climbing the slick stone and perfumed the warm air. Beside the water was a hut, guarded by bored leaves of a verdant green.

A blade was drawn perfunctorily at their arrival, but the grass was held at bay when Golden Tips waved them still.

“Here to have an audience,” she explained, and the message was conveyed inside. “All right, the lady may see you now.”

“Camellia,” said the captain. “Act as ship ambassador at my side.”

It was an honor, to be sure.

Two lapsang souchongs waved them inside, cigars clenched between their teeth. The vines swung closed behind them.

"Don't mind my grandsons,” came a magnanimous voice from further in the room. “They’re not very bright."

The lady sat on a short stool by the fire. It was hard to make her out in the baking room, so hazy was the smoke. It was a comfortable atmosphere, and as they approached, Camellia could see that she was a very round pu’ehr, regal and quite aged.

“Greetings,” said the captain taking a knee. “Peacable tidings from I and my crew.”

“Greetings,” Camellia agreed, and bowed low.

As the pu’ehr regarded them she dusted fannings from her lap and sat more stiffly.

“Yes, greetings. Well now. What brings you to my land. ”

“We seek safe harbor,” said Camellia, then cleared her throat. “Your majesty.”

The pu’erh peered at her. "Oh my, you're rather tippy, aren't you?"

"My mother once described me as full-bloom,” Camellia argued.

"That's one way of putting it. Now tell me, what's a young darjeeling like yourself doing so far from home? And in the company of common greens, no less."

The darjeeling looked to the entrance where her crew peered in. It was true, they were all run ragged by exposure to sea air.

The condemnation was made less so, however, when the pu’ehr winked at the captain, who chortled a bit.

“Well, child?”

At her captain's urging, Camellia recounted their journey, how they'd been at sea for months, uprooted and flung to the corners of the earth as if seedlings on the strong winds of fate.

“So if it pleases you madam,” she finished. “Please tell us. Is this the land of which the tales spoke?”

The pu’erh mulled this over for quite some time, before pronouncing, “Long have I renounced the fiery tastes of youth,” she said. “And pirates are not my cuppa. But let it never be said I was the one to turn away a traveler.”

“That is good of you,” said the captain. “We are, after all, of one big family.”

“Indeed, you speak the truth. And I hope you will consider I and the other leaves you meet here to be dear caf-friend-es.”

Camellia couldn’t contain her excitement. “So this _is_ the land of legend? Of hot pools and sweet sands?”

There was a glint in the pu’erh’s eye as she pronounced. "Aye."

A cheer rose from the waiting travelers who were all crowded close to the door and listening, and the captain assured her that they were all of them well chaffed.

“Make yourselves at home,” she said, then, “Oh good heavens,” when a scarred gunpowder from artillery entered to plant a kiss on her cheek.

“Off you go,” she said, “I have many other affairs to attend to, as I’m sure you’ll imagine."

 

 

 

The pools of legend were just around the grotto, where the streams gathered into hot springs, some a tepid soak, some hot and bubbling, the landscape populated with hundreds of leaves chatting and relaxing. The darjeeling pulled her spyglass and saw that past the pools in the far distance were grassy climbs with tea plants flourishing, a nursery, and beyond that, a smoking volcano with slow lava that turned the sugar-sands to syrup.

The smooth scent of tea was everywhere, as leaves brewed to their hearts’ content.

“Make yourselves at home,” said Golden Tips, and cries of joy rose from every weary teafarer.

“Paradise at last!” sang a rough sencha, taking a dip next to his best and least astringent friend, an elderly gyokuro.

A matcha entered a cold pool nearby and dissolved a bit with a sigh.

Camellia chose a soaking tub that looked to be just below boiling point, then looked back at Golden Tips. “Would you care to join me?”

“I was about to take a dip myself,” Golden Tips said and followed her in.

The temperature was exquisite, and a delicate floral aroma was evident when she swished around in the steamy water.

“I’ve never been to a land like this one,” said Camellia. “I hail from the mountains, cold and wet.”

“And yet we are grown of the same leaf,” said Golden Tips. “I can feel it.”

Camellia sunk lower in the water, pleased. “I feel it as well.”

“Excuse my boldness, but you’ve a good nose,” said Golden Tips after a short silence.

"And you are of an intriguing body,” responded Camellia. Then overcome with embarrassment, clarified, “Erm, organoleptically speaking of course. With all due respect."

She felt high in antioxidants and quite silly, but as Golden Tips was already laughing at her, all was well.

As they soaked together in delicious muscatel with all of her compatriots happy and healthy under the sun, the darjeeling reflected on her long time seeking a home, and wondered at the power of hope. Dreams really did come brew.


End file.
